Your fierce face

BabyFaceBlueYour fierce face

on the pillow—
brows spearing down towards
wide bisected koala nose
succulent lips
acute resilient chin.

Tonight you are troubled
by concerns beyond your scope:
baffling sorrows
pervading childhood’s lair…

Felt inside the strident pitch
of your father on the telephone;
the tremulous tone
of your mother’s lullabies.

Felt in the streak of the cat,
the slink of the dog;
felt in the dangerous pulse

of our home.

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    1. Good Lord, I seem to make a habit of disturbing you with my poems, Robyn! I must try and write something cheery. (But then when I’m cheery I never feel like writing — too busy being cheery :-)) Thank you for your generous comment, Robyn. It means so much!

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      Good Lord, I seem to make a habit of disturbing you with my poems, Robyn! I must try and write something cheery. (But then when I’m cheery I never feel like writing — too busy being cheery :-)) Thank you for your generous comment, Robyn. It means so much!

  1. There are a lot of animals in that short poem, Michele…quite a menagerie, from the koala to the dog and the cat; childhood is almost an animal itself, not easily described.

    Fascinating.

  2. There are a lot of animals in that short poem, Michele…quite a menagerie, from the koala to the dog and the cat; childhood is almost an animal itself, not easily described.

    Fascinating.

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  3. Michele, What a rich–and, yes, heartbreaking– poem. Agree with Penelope–the vivid depiction of so many animals in this lair of childhood, along with the full-flavored “mouthfeel” of so many words, paint a portrait of danger that is more sensuous and visceral…appropriate for the threats to safety, survival you write about. Brava! xx

  4. Michele, What a rich–and, yes, heartbreaking– poem. Agree with Penelope–the vivid depiction of so many animals in this lair of childhood, along with the full-flavored “mouthfeel” of so many words, paint a portrait of danger that is more sensuous and visceral…appropriate for the threats to safety, survival you write about. Brava! xx

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  5. I am most taken by the stanza :
    Felt inside the strident pitch
    of your father on the telephone;
    the tremulous tone
    of your mother’s lullabies.

    I wonder what the father is saying on the phone, and to whom. I wonder what lullaby the mother chooses to sing. Good writing, especially poetry, does not gives us the answers, it compels us to think, to wonder. Thank you for doing that with your words, Michele.

  6. I am most taken by the stanza :
    Felt inside the strident pitch
    of your father on the telephone;
    the tremulous tone
    of your mother’s lullabies.

    I wonder what the father is saying on the phone, and to whom. I wonder what lullaby the mother chooses to sing. Good writing, especially poetry, does not gives us the answers, it compels us to think, to wonder. Thank you for doing that with your words, Michele.

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